


The Sun Thick in Your Mouth

by Nanashi Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Breathplay, Complicated Emotions, Loyalty, M/M, Sunflowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-31
Updated: 2007-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Nanashi%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichimaru, already smiling, cracks his grin wider. "You look just like ya did when you was takin' yer exams at school," he says. His mouth distends wider still. "This ain't a test, Izuru."</p><p>Isn't it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun Thick in Your Mouth

Even though he's lying down now, Kira's heart keeps racing. Even though his eyes are closed, he's not in black darkness, the sun is still bright on the other side. He focuses on the sun, filtered through the skin of his eyelids, diffused into formless light. He breathes in, inhales the sun and its flowers; deep breaths wrap around his pulse, soothing it, easing it, calming it, steadying it…

"My oh my, ain't this a pretty sight?"

Kira's heart thumps hard and irregular. He doesn't have to look to know whose silk-wrapped words these are, whose voice is brushing soft over him, inside and out. He doesn't have to look but he does anyhow: arches his neck and opens his eyes, and Ichimaru smiles at him upside down, gravity tugging the ends of his hair into a soft silver fall.

"Sure is pretty here," Ichimaru continues, grazing his fingernails down the length of the nearest tall stem. "And," he looks around the field of stalks surrounding them, looks up at the heads of flowers nodding bright and high in the breeze above them, "secret-like. In fact," Ichimaru says like he's just thought of it, "this would be the perfect place for a lovers' rendezvous or somethin' surreptitious, wouldn't ya say so?"

Kira would say so and he could say so, but he doesn't. He doesn't say anything about having seen Ichimaru talking with Captain Aizen just now, heads bent towards each other in a way that, had they been girls, would surely have meant they were in love or gossiping. Kira doesn't say anything about how air below the flower-line, thick and still, conducts sound so that he knows they are not in love and were not meeting for gossip. Kira doesn't say anything at all about any of that. 

Ichimaru's brows go up like he's just thought of something else now. "I'm not walking in on ya waitin' for someone, am I?"

Kira swallows the heart he has been holding in his mouth. Swallows again to dislodge it from the base of his throat but it sticks there and he has to speak around it. "No, Captain," he says. "I'm alone."

"I see," Ichimaru says; and then yet another revelation: "But that could be dangerous, out here all alone like this. What if someone big and mean and scary was to happen on ya? He could do somethin' unsavory, and no one might ever know…

"Ain't it lucky for you," Ichimaru smiles, "that I'm the one who came along?" He sits down, just at the edge of Kira's field of vision. "Don't worry, Izuru; I'll watch over ya. You can close yer eyes again."

Ichimaru falls quiet then; they both do. 

From behind closed eyelids, Kira can still feel Ichimaru's gaze, hotter than the sun. He lets the heat wash over him; he takes it in, inhales, Ichimaru and sun and flowers in each breath; and his heart is still beating, beating, easing now with each yielding breath, sinking from his throat back to his chest, easy, easy beats…

Then he feels a soft tickle, like butterfly wings. And then the whole butterfly covers his face, and it's not a butterfly. Kira tries to inhale and this time he gets only flower with his breath. He turns his head and the flower follows, pressing closer, petals framing his face, petals in his mouth; he tries to breathe through them but he only breathes them in. He puts his hand on the stem just below the flower's head, and Ichimaru lets him hold it still, lets him arch his own head out from under it to suck breath into his lungs as his eyes meet Ichimaru's.

"I hear if ya put this to your face and it reflects yellow, means ya like butter."

Ichimaru is looking at him, the slits of his eyes attentive, the slit and curve of his mouth attentive. Ichimaru is waiting for him to speak. So Kira says, "It's buttercups they say that about." He does not bother saying that it isn't true, that buttercups reflect on your skin with the sun whether you are fond of butter or not; the truth of it is not important.

"Is that so?" Ichimaru's tone affects surprise and mild disappointment. He turns his face to the flower, though Kira still feels the heat of his attention. "My mistake," he says as he regards the flower. "I sure hope ya won't think less of yer captain for his floral ignorance."

Kira listens for the question. "No, Captain," he says. "Of course not."

Ichimaru is still studying the flower. "I'm lucky I have Izuru for my lieutenant. What would I do without him, I wonder?"

Kira listens hard but there was no real question addressed to the flower, so he keeps his silence.

Ichimaru is holding the flower under his own face now. "What are these for, d'you suppose, if they don't tell ya nothing?"

"They're sunflowers," Kira compulsively answers the shift in tone. "They're us." When Ichimaru looks at him over the flower, Kira feels himself color. "Third Division, I mean. Our symbol."

Ichimaru, already smiling, cracks his grin wider. "You look just like ya did when you was takin' yer exams at school," he says. His mouth distends wider still. "This ain't a test, Izuru."

Isn't it?

When the sunflower comes towards him again, Izuru does not turn his face or close his eyes; he keeps looking even when the sunflower is covering him, too close to see. The sun is gone from his eyes but it is still in his mouth, thick in his mouth, and Kira keeps breathing even though the sun and the flower are thick in each breath, too thick to get past his heart, once more in his throat, too heavy for his lungs even when he swallows his heart down…

And then there is Ichimaru, again and still and always. Ichimaru's mouth, smiling. Kira opens his own mouth to breathe in deep, gets a lungful of air; gets a mouthful of Ichimaru's smile, and Kira swallows his heart, swallows the sun, and breathes deeper still.


End file.
